Getting back to blogging

Yeah, I know, it's been four months since I last blogged on here. I'm a bad blogger, and you have my heartfelt apologies (all two or three of you).

I do however have a good excuse. It's because I've actually been doing things. Like, real things involving going out and everything! I know, I'm as shocked as you are. In my last post I mentioned that I was dealing with an organisation called Enabling Independence, but I've now been discharged from that service (and I'm missing the lovely Molly dreadfully!) because they felt I was doing so well. I'm now a lead volunteer at my local library, and I'm in charge of the library at Jack's school (on a volunteer basis, but believe me, I'd love to do this as a paid job). Oh, and I'm also thinking about being able to go back to work! That's been the biggest change, that I can think about working and not feel my heart racing and my lungs clamp shut from fear. Unfortunately what I'd love to do is work in a library, but I'm sure no-one needs reminding about the state of library funding these days. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm a lot closer than I was six months ago.

Somewhere I seem to have picked up some self-esteem too. I've looked in the mirror a couple of times lately and thought "Wow, I look really cute today.". It's a major difference for me. A couple of months ago I couldn't even accept a compliment without thinking that the complimenter was lying, and now I'm actually complimenting myself. When it happens I just want to cry with gratitude. I'm planning on writing a separate post about self image and body positivity though, so I'll expand on this a bit more there.

I have still had the odd bad day, it isn't all sunshine and kittens, especially now that it's October and bloody miserable (seriously, I'm starting to forget that the world has a colour other than grey). So while I am still having bad days they are far fewer in number and intensity, and I'm able to deal with them a lot better thanks to the CBT. When I do have bad days I make an effort to not beat myself up about it too much. I was feeling pretty crappy a couple of days ago so I posted a list I wrote of things to remember when I feel depressed.

I promise I'll try and blog a bit more regularly from now on!

Getting Better

Back in March I wrote a post about anxiety and seeing a new psychiatrist, and I wasn't particularly charitable about the psychiatrist. I was annoyed and scared that he was trying to get me to do stuff and I didn't want to do it.

It's now three months later, and I owe him an apology; for the first time in at least 8 years I feel hopeful that I'm going to recover. He referred me to a service called Enabling Independence and I was terrified that they were going to try to make me jump straight into looking for a job or something, but of course they didn't. I'm seeing a lovely woman called Molly every two weeks, and in the couple of months we've been meeting I've started to think about what I want to do with my future, something that seemed like a ridiculous thing to do back in March, and I've started volunteering at my local library for a couple of hours every two weeks, something that felt impossible not very long ago. I've started an online CBT course with a therapist as well which I'm also finding incredibly helpful.

It might be the medication, it might just be the right time for this, but something has changed. I feel more able to do these things than I did a couple of months ago. I know I've got a long way to go yet, and I'm bound to have set-backs, but I'm so thankful that things have started to improve.

Dairy Free Iron Man Birthday Cake

Tomorrow is Andy's birthday, so I spent today making him a birthday cake (and he spent today washing up the piles of stuff that I left all over the kitchen). He's a big Iron Man fan, so I decided to make him an Iron Man birthday cake using this technique. It's essentially tracing a picture onto greaseproof paper with buttercream icing, freezing it and placing it onto the cake. When you peel the greaseproof paper off the icing it leaves the picture on the cake! If you want detailed instructions (with pictures) I suggest you check out the post I linked to. I'm far too tired and sticky to write a long blog post tonight.

Anyway, because of Jack's milk allergies I had to make the icing without using dairy butter and I honestly wasn't expecting it to work. I was convinced that the icing wouldn't freeze properly and the paper wouldn't peel off cleanly (even though I substituted some of the dairy-free spread with vegetable shortening). As a result I really didn't put much effort into making the tracing neat, or checking that all the gaps were filled and the icing was smooth. It didn't seem worth it when I was so sure that it would fail. I don't know if that makes it more annoying that it worked perfectly. Everything froze as it should, and the paper peeled off without the slightest smudging.

I wasn't terribly careful with the placement or the plain icing either. I was so sure I'd have to scrape it off anyway.

You can see here that the icing was bumpy, but that was totally my fault for not being more careful with piping it.

This is the first time I've ever attempted to decorate a cake with buttercream like this, so I'm really pleased with how it turned out! And now I know what to do (and what not to do) for Adam's birthday in July.